Taylor's King Crimson
by The Imperator President
Summary: Alt-Power Taylor with King Crimson and her fight with Lung. This is me testing out how well I can write Taylor's POV, so I'd love any input.
1. Pictures of a City 1-1

**Taylor's King Crimson**

 **Pictures of a City 1-1**

I walked quickly out of the building, dodging through the students milling about. I figured that Emma and the others would be looking for me, but I wasn't going to give them the satisfaction of finding me. I still couldn't believe how she had turned on me, becoming best friends with some girl named Sophia, and using every confidential thing I'd ever told her against me.

I managed to get out of school without bumping into any of the girls, which was nice for a change. On the bus ride home, I sat in silence, looking over the little bit of homework I'd gotten today in my classes and debating whether or not to actually do it. It wasn't like I'd be able to turn it in; my work always seemed to disappear before being graded in any class I shared with the trio.

I held back some tears as I thought about the incident earlier in the year, the locker. I had the right to get back at them for what they did, but I felt so powerless when around them. Emma always knew exactly how to push my buttons, and I always ended up a mess whenever Emma, Sophia, and Madison confronted me.

When the bus arrived home, I hurried in and up to my room. Dad wasn't home, so I would have the house to myself for a little while. I dug through the clothes in my closet and found the box I had hidden in the back. I pulled out my nearly finished costume from it. I'd wanted to wait till the summer, but with the trio just continuing to work on ruining my life, I needed to do something to let off some steam and not go crazy.

The costume wasn't all that special. I had been discretely ordering parts to it, some light Kevlar here or there, some elbow and knee pads from different websites, all trying to be discrete about it. I wasn't all that happy with it, but it was my first job and I knew I would get better as time went on.

I still had a bit to do on the costume, before I could go out in it. The knee pads and elbow pads needed to be worked into the outfit itself, not just sitting on the outside. I also needed to find a way to get some good armor type material for my things and chest, but that didn't give up too much mobility.

My power was a bit… odd, to say the least. When I first woke up in the hospital, I kept experiencing constant déjà vu. I finished doctors' sentences, I somehow knew when a nurse would drop something, or knew when my dad would show up. It was almost too much to bear for a while, constantly being bombarded with what was about to happen. I drifted in and out of consciousness for the next day or so, until abruptly the future seeing stopped. I decided not to say anything to my dad, he was worried enough as it was and I didn't want to upset him anymore.

After getting out of the hospital, I found I slept weirdly sound for the next couple weeks. I figured it was just the shock finally wearing off. Over the course of those weeks, I worked every afternoon after school to find a way to get back the power. It was a way for me to actually do something with my life, and I wasn't going to let that slip out of my grasp.

Finally I managed to activate it again, but it was different than before. A little head shaped thing formed on my forehead, and what seemed like a screen appeared in my bangs. Whenever I activated it, the head appeared and the next 10 seconds rapidly played in front of my eyes. It didn't seem to matter how much information was displayed, I remembered it all.

I figured that, it still was a pretty powerful thing to be able to do. Seeing the future, that was cool. I went out to woods near the south of town every couple days after school and worked on honing it. I found that if I sat still for a while and let some birds and stuff land near me, I was able to accurately catch each one of them once I saw the future. In my head, their movements all mapped out perfectly formed lines and curves, the trajectories all instantly coming to mind.

It was exhilarating to feel myself twisting and turning, moving fast enough to catch birds as they took off. I loved it. Pretty soon I moved on to running through the woods, with my hair completely over my eyes. I dodged every tree, every fallen limb, made every turn. That was when I decided I was ready to start working on becoming a hero and fighting the criminals in the city.

From there, I had decided to start unobtrusively picking up the pieces for the outfit I was wear. I liked the color red for it, since it matched the color of the little head that appeared on my forehead, but red would have been way too flashy for an outfit. I didn't want everyone to _try_ and hit me. I finally settled on a crimson and grey mottled Kevlar weave, that was subdued enough as to not draw too much attention to itself in the dark, but also gave the outfit a bit of personality.

I looked at the outfit, then put it back in the box. Not tonight, Saturday night, I would go out Sunday. That would give me time to mentally prepare myself and make sure I had everything covered armor wise before I went out.

* * *

Sunday night arrived, and I nervously waited for my dad to go to bed before I went out. The suit fit alright, though the elbows and knees were a bit tight from the pads there. I snuck out through the window and got down to the ground without making too much noise.

As I'd been preparing for tonight over the last several weeks, I'd taken to running nearly every afternoon to build up my stamina and endurance. My parents had always told me to "stay on the Boardwalk," the good part of town. For the most part I kept there, but every so often I would move my run a little ways into the docks. The difference between the Boardwalk and the Docks was painfully obvious.

The Docks were rundown, broken, cramped and crowded streets filled with trash and dilapidated houses. The Boardwalk was filled with people, safe, and generally clean and up to date with its safety and building permits. I stopped at the edge of the Boardwalk, where the lights got dimmer and the people got more withdrawn and jumpy.

I activated my ability and brushed my hair over the right side of my face. I really needed to get a name for this power, but I couldn't think of a good one. Maybe a song title? Future sight was bland. The word "epitaph" had come to mind earlier when I had been mulling it over. Since I basically lived the future in past tense, that kind of made sense, a sort of eulogy to the present which basically was dead to me when I was using it. Still was a bit clunky, though, I would have to work on it.

I snuck through the Docks, behind buildings and through alleyways, using my power, Epitaph I guess, to avoid confrontations with any people in the area. After a couple minutes of wandering, I heard a group of people heading my way, and I froze. I slunk back into the shadows and worked on calming my breathing.

Several dozen large Asian men came down the street, with a massive, tattooed man in the lead. My heart rate shot upwards when I realized who it was. Lung! I was within 50 feet of Lung himself. Suddenly, this plan to try to fight crime in the Docks really seemed really poorly thought out.

The sound of their voices was just loud enough to carry bits and pieces of the conversation to me, but not enough to allow me to make out complete sentences. Lung was the first one I heard.

Lung was growling, "…the children, just shoot. Doesn't matter your aim... You see one lying on the ground? Shoot the little bitch twice more to be sure."

I had to suppress a shout. Children, Lung was ordering his men to kill kids? No, I had to do something. There had to be a pay phone nearby where I could use to call the Protectorate or the PRT. Someone there would know what to do. But I realized that I might be too late if I wait. I'd need to figure out a plan. I had some mace with me, and some string, but I had been hoping to go after some low level thugs that I could just punch, not someone like Lung. I really just needed to distract him long enough to keep the ABB from carrying out their plans.

I gritted my teeth. This wasn't going to be easy.

I clipped my bangs down onto my mask to cover my right eye, and then I leapt out at the gang members. The nearest one almost hit me with a punch, but I dodged and gave him a face full of pepper spray. As he flailed I dodged another punch and slammed my first into the back of his neck and kicked the man on the back of his knees.

Epitaph flashed me the next 10 seconds; I dodged another punch from the next man to attack, and then two more from a third gang member. My head began to hurt a little, like it had in the hospital, but I pushed past it and focused on the fight at hand.

Lung regained his composure and leapt at me with a snarl, his men clearing out of the way. Lung was fast, but I had already seen this coming and knew where and how I needed to move to get out of the way. His fist, which was starting to look scaly, flew at me from my left. I dropped to me right knee and turned the movement into a roll, going under Lung and coming up behind him and his men. I shot another burst of the mace into the second thug, and spun my body to the right as the third thug tried to punch me. My sudden motion left the man unable to correct himself, and his fist slammed into the chest of the second gang member, dropping him to the ground. Three down, several dozen more to go.

I saw Lung's following attack coming, but I wasn't able to move out of the way fast enough. His hand grabbed me around the neck and he hoisted me into the air. His fingers were sharp, like claws, and fire and smoke was drifting out of his mouth.

"You should not have tried to interfere, girl," he growled, squeezing my neck tighter as he did. My world started to go black, and that was the last thing I remembered.

* * *

Lung was not having a good evening. This girl had overheard what he had been planning, and had taken out several of his men. At least he would get the satisfaction of killing her here, without anyone else getting the chance to interfere. He felt her body go limp as he clenched at her throat, and he smiled. His men needed a spectacle to inspire them, and here one was.

Suddenly, the small face shape on the girl's forehead glowed, and a red humanoid thing emerged from her body. Its face seemed to be a flat, pale yellow mask with gritting teeth and the smaller head planted in the forehead. Its fist lashed out faster than Lung could even see and plunged straight into his stomach, all the way through the back, spilling blood all over the street.

Lung stumbled and fell, dropping the girl. Surprisingly, she landed on her feet, and the red thing vanished. Her demeanor had completely changed. Instead of the minimizing presence she had had before, now she seemed to swagger, her shoulders back and her hips swaying when she walked. She brushed her hair over her eyes, completely concealing her face. Beneath the hair, Lung could make out a faint glow.

"She means well, but doesn't really have the heart to finish a fight like this. You can call me Crimson… King Crimson."

The red ethereal figure flew from her body again, floating around the girl for a second or two. "Time has been erased," the girl muttered.

Suddenly, Lung found himself standing, his wounds slightly more healed than they were an instant ago. The girl was nowhere to be seen. "Time resumes," Lung heard behind him. An impact on his should jerked him through the air and spun him around like a rag doll. The girl was suddenly behind him, he realized, and she had just punched his shoulder hard enough to nearly tear it from his body. Lung hit the wall of the building across the street hard, smashing through the brick and mortar and falling into a heap. He got up and charged at her location, but suddenly found himself where she was, but she was not there. A flurry of blows struck his back and splattered his guts across the ground beneath. He fell, losing consciousness as his body tried to repair itself. His last sight was the girl and her strange energy creation, laughing at his fall. All around them, Lung's remaining men sprinted away from the carnage.


	2. Pictures of a City 1-2

**Pictures of a City 1-2**

 _Lung's hand squeezed my throat, and I began to black out. With my last bit of strength, I managed to spray some of my mace into his eyes causing him to drop me. I scrambled back, and tripped over what looked like a rocket launcher._

 _Why had I not noticed that before?_

 _I shrugged and picked it up, and jumped back out of the way of another of Lung's punches. The headache was gone now, and it was a lot easier to see where things were going to be with Epitaph. Finally, I was getting the hang of this._

 _The rocket launcher felt light and natural in my hands, which was weird since I'd never picked one up before in my life. Must be my powers, future seeing means my body is already used to stuff I haven't picked up yet._

 _I fired the rocket launcher right at Lung's stomach, and it exploded through the back of him, plastering his guts all over the ground behind him. I shot another one into his shoulder, but that one only managed to rip it partially out of its socket, not blow his arm off._

 _I noticed my mask was a bit loose, so I tightened it and threw the rocket launcher to the side. I looked, but I didn't see where I threw it. Weirder still, I didn't even hear it land. All three thugs were lying unconscious around me, which was good. None got away._

 _I looked down at Lung suddenly felt the experience catch up to me._ I heaved a ragged breath as my arm and leg muscles nearly seized up. I panted heavily, suddenly very tired. But I'd done it, I'd managed to take out Lung, Lung! I stumbled over to a nearby building and leaned against it for support. A phone was really what I needed right now. Lung needed to be contained quickly, or he'd get away. The information I'd found on him while researching the capes in Brockton Bay was amazing. Apparently he'd even managed to fight Leviathan in a one on one fight. Given enough time, he'd get big enough to fight pretty much anything and heal from most injuries. I did not want to be here when he woke up, or he would almost certainly rip me to pieces before I even had a chance to react.

I steadied myself and started to look for a building nearby that might have a phone. The nearest two were vacant, and the one across from where Lung now lay had a hole through its side that I didn't recall noticing before. A roar of a motorcycle in the distance made me nearly jump, and I realized I didn't have Epitaph going anymore. I hid behind the rubble to see who was coming.

The motorcycle slowed to a stop as it got to Lung's body, which was still twitching as it healed itself. A man who I recognized nearly immediately as Armsmaster stepped off the bike and got off to look at Lung. A second later, he nearly jumped backwards over his bike. He tapped on the side of his helmet and mumbled something, then turned and looked almost right at me.

"Alright, come on out. Slowly and keep your hands where I can see. I'd rather not have to fight, but that won't stop me. "

I stood up, too quickly it seemed, and Armsmaster pointed his halberd, his spear with a Tinker built axe head, at me. "N-no, I'm with the good guys."

"You're not Asian, so you're not with Lung. You don't look like someone that'd be with Kaiser…" Armsmaster lowered his weapon as he spoke, "You need a hospital? What happened here, who managed to do this to Lung?"

A response began to form on my lips, but I stopped myself. Who was going to believe that I did it? I needed to make up a story. "Well, I was out on my first night of heroics, and I almost ran into Lung and his friends here. They were talking about killing some kids or something, so I got ready to try to distract him." That all came pretty easily, and was the truth. "I jumped at them, and managed to take down the goons, but Lung grabbed me and nearly ripped my head off. Just then, some person with a weird glowing red suit (where did that come from, I wondered to myself) jumped down off the roof and punched these holes into Lung."

Armsmaster stood thinking for a moment and staring at me, then nodded. "You seem to be telling the truth, alright, so we got some new guy in town that can take Lung. This'll be a major headache to deal with, let alone keep quiet to keep mass hysteria down. What kind of person just takes out Lung and runs away?" He stopped for a moment, then turned back to me. "Would you like me to give you a ride anywhere, you look pretty banged up? Next time you see someone like Lung, don't be an idiot and go after him. Leave that to professionals like me."

"Thanks for the offer, but I'm fine, I can get out of here on my own."

"Since you're new to this, I'll give you some advice. You won't survive long without proper training and equipment. Independent capes usually end up dead or pressed into service in one of the many gangs. Without a support network, capes like you usually last about a month at most. By joining the Wards, you'll have the PRT to back you up as well as professional combat training."

I shook my head. "I think I'll try this on my own for a while, I don't know if I want to commit to a team or anything."

Armsmaster shrugged. "Regardless of whether or not you join the Wards, I would like to ask that you at least come down to the PRT HQ to debrief us on what you saw of the cape that took down Lung. We can make sure your name doesn't come up at all in any official reports. On your own, you are a much easier target for any of Lung's flunkies to strike at."

"I really don't want to have to show my face or have my name connected with any of this stuff. You can keep my name off the paperwork, but I also don't want to have to come in."

Armsmaster smiled, a warmer smile than I had expected, and nodded. "Alright, that's a consistent choice at least, just staying out of this completely. Keep your head down in the future, and think about what I told you; if you need any help in the future, let me know. Now I'd suggest you leave pretty soon, because in a few minutes this place is going to be crazy with ABB, E88, other gangs, and Protectorate and PRT forces." He went back over to where Lung was lying on the ground and placed some obviously Tinker-built handcuffs onto him.

I sprinted quickly in the general direction of home. After Armsmaster was out of sight I activated Epitaph and moved from building to building, keeping in the shadows. I managed to keep out of sight of any cars, dropping to the ground around corners anytime I saw one coming.

The walk back through the Boardwalk was uneventful, though I had the feeling I was being followed. But no matter what I did to check, I didn't see anyone. It must have just been paranoia.

Once home, I climbed up the side of the house and opened the window to my room quietly. I ripped my mask off and pulled off my boots.

I lay down on my bed, my mind still racing. Should I join the Wards? Sure, my power was really great, but it didn't help all that much with an opponent that was massively physically superior to me like Lung. With the Wards, I could get training that I would need. But on the other hand, my dad was already worried enough about me, he probably wouldn't let me join the Wards.

The other option was to remain independent. Sure, that would be more difficult, but it would save me from having to get my dad's approval to go out, and it would keep me from having to deal with the teen drama that the Wards would be filled with.

I sat up and looked over at my outfit. The neck was ripped up, and the rest of the outfit was a bit scuffed. Staying as an independent also meant I wouldn't have easy access to a way to fix my costume. That would be a source of numerous headaches in the future, I was sure of it.

I flopped back down onto my pillow and stared up at the ceiling. Should I talk to my dad? I really wanted to be a hero, a cape, but I didn't want to have to work in the Wards or worry Dad even more after all that had happened: Mom dying, work getting tougher, and then my stay in the hospital earlier in the year.

I would have time to tell him, I figured, but right now I just wanted to sleep. As long as no one knew what I was doing, no one was able to connect me to any of this, Dad wouldn't need to know. I drifted off to images of a red, glowing figure dancing in my mind.

* * *

The three ABB members slumped in their cell. They'd been captured along with Lung, so they weren't going to just get to walk free. The PRT had all kinds of questions for them, but for now they were just being kept in a holding facility, waiting for transfer to PRT headquarters. Their eyes and lungs were still sore from the pepper spray, but the jail clinic had been able to give them some respite from the stuff.

The first of the thugs, Li, was older than the others and had been in Brockton Bay longer than nearly anyone else in the ABB. He had done time several times in the past, always for petty theft. But now, since he was witness to the person who had taken down Lung, the PRT needed him contained.

Li heard an explosion outside of the cellblock, and several guns firing in quick succession. He leapt up from his chair and moved away from the bars. The guns all went quiet. The door to the cell block flew off of its hinges, and a small, shadowed figure stepped through the wreckage. A glint from the emergency highlighted the intruders face enough for Li to recognize her.

"You're the girl that took out Lung!" Li shouted in Japanese and quickly moved further back from the bars.

The figure leaned forward and spoke. "You saw my fight with Lung tonight. I can't have anyone finding that out. The cameras are all disabled in this building, so it's just you three and me." She sprinted forward toward the cell door. It exploded as if a concussive force hit it going several hundred miles an hour. Li's chest exploded first, then his two friends similarly fell.

The figure looked down at their bodies, then turned and walked out.

* * *

I nearly leapt out of my bed when my alarm woke me. I was not ready to get up. Getting up meant going to school, and going to school meant having to face the trio. And I still needed to determine if I would tell my dad about my powers.

I quickly shoved my suit into my school bag, then put my books and stuff on top of it. There was some blood on the suit that I didn't remember being there before, but I had been tired last night and not thinking quite straight.

I took a shower, the cold water really feeling nice on my sore muscles. My neck had visible bruises and long cuts on it where Lung had grabbed. That would be impossible to explain away if my dad saw.

If I told him, he'd be upset, but nowhere near as upset as he would be if something happened to me and he didn't know I was a cape now. Sighing, I toweled off and worked on drying my hair. I _would_ tell him, but not till I was ready, not yet. I still needed to figure out for myself whether I even wanted to be a Ward, without Dad getting involved.

I put on my glasses and looked over at myself. Sure, I wasn't the best looking girl at Winslow High, but I wasn't the worst. If only my experience today could be average like my looks, instead of the unbelievable shit that kept happening.

Downstairs, Dad was busy rummaging through the cabinets in the kitchen. Damn, he was going to see me this morning, I had to hide my neck now. I walked in quickly and grabbed a pop-tart from the open box on the table, brushing my hair down so it covered the back of my neck. The TV was on, the morning show people discussing a bunch of disappearances and deaths of Asian men in the Docks last night. Dad had his slightly cocked as he worked, to hear the audio better.

"How are you doing this morning?" He asked without turning.

"I'm fine, I got to go, need to get to school," I quickly responded rushing to open the door to get out of the house, "see you after school. Love you Dad, bye." Before he could say anything else, I was outside and on my way to the bus. Yeah, I didn't really like lying to him, but he didn't need to know yet.

* * *

Special thanks to Nigel Isaacs on Sufficient Velocity forums for helping me with this chapter. The first chaper was updated and tweaked a bit


	3. Pictures of a City 1-3

**Pictures of a City 1-3**

Everyone at school was talking about it. Lung's capture was all over the news, apparently, as was the disappearances or deaths of thirty more ABB members. The news was reporting that Armsmaster had claimed the credit, saying he had been aided by a cape who wished to remain anonymous. I was overjoyed. Sure, no one knew it was me that did it, but I had managed to take down Lung!

Mr. G's class that day was on how the supervillains in our town shaped our daily lives, from bank robberies to the more over the top schemes that people like Uber and Leet committed. I spent most of the class doodling in my notebook and sketching costume ideas. I really didn't know how I would get a better costume together, but it was fun to just imagine what I would do if I could. I tuned back in to Mr. G's lecture when he started to talk about Lung's recent capture and what he thought of the situation.

"It's interesting, this situation. Some cape that Armsmaster doesn't know helps him take down Lung, and doesn't even give Armsmaster a name or anything. A cape that doesn't want even his cape identity known is fairly interesting thing that is not often seen in the world today." Mr. G stopped and looked up at the clock. "For homework, I want each of you to write up a short essay on how you could see the world being different if capes tried to keep both their private life and cape life a secret from the general public."

The bell rang, and I closed my notebook. Before I could get up, three shadows loomed over me.

"You try and hang yourself?" Sophia sneered, staring at my neck. "I wouldn't blame you."

"Gonna go home and try it again? Good luck this time," Emma laughed.

They all walked away, whispering and snickering. Madison 'accidentally' bumped into my desk and knocked it over, spilling my notebook and pens onto the ground. I caught myself before I hit the ground. I glared up at them, and my vision swam for a second. I shook my head to clear it, I shouldn't let them get to me but I always did.

I bent over and picked them up slowly. I needed to hit something, let off some steam. I shoved my notebook and pens into my back pack and threw it onto my shoulder. On my way out, Mr. G started to say something, but I just ignored him. What was he going to say, sorry? He hadn't stepped in before and that wasn't likely to change now.

I headed out of school as fast as I could, not towards the bus but towards the Boardwalk. Dad wouldn't be home yet, and if he was I would just tell him I was out running. My suit was still in my back pack, hidden in the bottom underneath my books, but I wasn't planning on putting it on just yet. For now, I just wanted to look around and get a good feel for the area. If I was going to patrol here, I needed to get the layout down like the back of my hand.

I pulled out a hat and placed it snuggly on my head, pulling my bangs over and in front of my right eye as I did so. When I activated Epitaph, I felt a slight pressure on my forehead as the head shape formed there and pushed against the hat. I played the next 10 seconds for myself, to make sure everything was working right.

There was going to be an explosion in the store directly in front of me in 8 seconds. I suppressed a gasp and quickly moved off of the sidewalk into the shadow of the nearest building. Up ahead, the doors of a store I couldn't make out exploded outwards in a small fireball, which twisted itself into a rough spiral shape. The people mulling about on the street scattered, rushing into any door close to them to get off the street.

What seemed to be a woman in a combination of a ringmaster and a clown outfit stepped out through the smoke, a brightly painted sledgehammer resting on her shoulder. It was Circus. I hadn't been able to find out much about her in my research of Brockton Bay villains, other than that she always tweaked her outfit slightly and had a grab bag of minor powers. She could store stuff in a pocket dimension, had minor pyrokinesis, and had heightened agility and coordination. She consistently was able to make off with the stolen goods from robberies like this due to her versatility and low profile.

I grabbed my mask out of my backpack and pulled it on, taking my hat off as I did. I pulled off my shirt and slid the Kevlar outfit over my arms and torso then clipped my bangs to the mask. Circus turned to walk away from the store, and I seized that moment to charge.

I wasn't quiet enough, however, since Circus froze in place the second my I stepped onto the road towards her. I saw the next 10 seconds play out rapidly. She would pull a knife out of thin air and throw it straight into my chest. I gritted my teeth. I would have to be careful here, dodging too soon would cause her to aim differently.

Circus's hand flickered for a moment and reappeared with a slender throwing knife in it. She whipped her torso around and launched the knife at me as she did. I threw myself to my left as fast I was able, narrowly avoiding the knife hitting my chest. It scraped across my arm, cutting through the already damaged fabric and drawing blood.

I triggered Epitaph again. It wasn't going to be good. Circus was going to throw an entire handful of knives at me. I stood up, holding my hand over the gash on my right arm. "I bet you're wondering how I could dodge that?" I asked, stalling for time.

"Good reflexes, maybe some kind of power that gives you combat precog, nothing too hard to deal with," Circus retorted, her hand flickering and appearing with a handful of knives in it.

I didn't wait for the throw this time before I moved to get out of the way, sprinting into a nearby alleyway. Several of the knives tagged my calves and thighs as I moved, but nothing deep. As the last knife flew past me, I used Epitaph to follow its trajectory, closing my hand on it as it narrowly skimmed past me. Now I had a weapon, I just needed to figure out how to use it against Circus.

"Despite how much I would relish breaking you down," Circus called in my direction, "I don't have time for this. Stalling me till the PRT can arrive is not a tactic I have ever allowed to work on me."

I peeked around the corner and saw her taking off into the distance. I wasn't about to let her get away. No, I was going to stop her. I gripped the knife tight in my hand and rand straight at her. She must have knew I'd be coming, because she spun around to hit me with the hammer. I was ready to dodge, moving out of the way enough that the blow only caught the back of my already hurt right arm. I grunted with pain, but continued to swing the knife at Circus's arm.

Circus spun her shoulder around so I only hit empty space and laughed. "You're a persistent little freak, but you clearly don't know what you're doing." The hammer vanished and she launched her fist right at me, connecting with my mask, knocking my head back.

I had enough of a warning to be ready and rolled with the punch, saving myself from the brunt of the blow. I slammed into the ground hard. I needed to find a way to hit her, even though she was faster that I was. I needed to use my knowledge of where she'd be to my advantage, not just for defense but for offense.

For the second time, I stood up and moved toward, this time slower. She eyed me warily. Her hands flickered and the sledgehammer reappeared. She shifted her weight and leaned in as if to attack, but I already knew one wasn't coming. "You'll have to try better than that," I taunted, "I can tell what you're going to do next, and you aren't going to charge me with that hammer." I hoped this would put her on edge, make her lose her cool, because she was frankly better than me.

Circus glared at me and then sneered, "You're just a bit full of yourself." She kept back, however, not coming into melee range this time. Her hammer disappeared and her hand filled with about a dozen more knives.

I triggered Epitaph again and saw each blades path through the air, saw where each would hit. It would be tricky to dodge, but I could do it if I focused. I adjusted my grip on the knife I had grabbed and stood ready for flurry of blades.

The knives flew at me in exactly the pattern I'd seen. I twisted my body around as it happened and the majority of the knives flew past me. Two of them collided with my elbow pads and shoulder guard, embedding themselves into them. Again, I took a waiting pose. I smiled for effect. "You can't hit me, I know everything you're going to throw at me."

I couldn't tell if my words were having any effect, Circus kept herself generally composed, although she kept the sneering expression on her face. She whipped her arms around her head and several more knives appeared in them, launching straight at me.

I dodged the only way I could, by throwing myself on the ground. And then I saw what would happen next and realized what a horrible idea jumping to the ground had been. Circus was going to lob almost a dozen more knives at me, and I had nowhere to go.

The knives came rapidly, in an uneven distribution. I managed to catch one and use it to block another and block one with the knife I already had. But that left 9 knives to plunge into my body. I had been able to position myself so that the majority of them fell into the paintball armor on my chest and upper thighs, but one final knife stuck itself into my calf.

I let out a sharp cry of pain, but I didn't let go of the two knives. I rolled over and stood up shakily. The knife in my leg hurt like hell, but I knew I would be fine if I could end the fight soon. Circus's face had fallen slightly, my ability to dodge her attacks begin to shake her resolve it seemed.

I triggered Epitaph. I saw where the next swing would land and where her hands and arms would be in relation to myself, and I smiled. "I've got this fight already." My body hurtled at Circus, the feeling of pain temporarily pushed from my mind in the rush of adrenaline.

She swung the hammer at me, faster than I had anticipated, but I was still ready. I moved myself to the side, putting all my weight onto my good foot, and positioned the knife I held in my left hand so that it was propped up in my hand, resting above my right armpit. The hammer itself missed my body, but the handle slammed into my shoulder and upraised forearm, knocking the wind out of me. The force of the swing carried her arm across the blade, ripping a massive, deep gash open along Circus's entire forearm.

Circus cried out and dropped the hammer, clutching her bleeding arm. I coughed up some blood and stayed standing. My blood was pounding in my ears; this was going to hurt a lot as soon as the rush wore off.

I swung at Circus before the shock could wear off, and used my prediction to land a solid blow on her face with a knife despite her attempt to dodge, digging into her cheek and slicing her tongue. I slammed the blade down into her shoulder and punched her in the face right where I had stabbed her. I stood for a couple seconds over her, then I kicked her in the arm. Circus fell to the ground.

I stayed standing for a couple seconds, my mind racing. I'd done it again! I'd managed to take down another supervillain. So far I had a perfect record for taking down criminals, which was pretty impressive. And, they were two that had been notoriously hard to catch. Now I just needed to find a way to contact the Protectorate or the PRT.

I slumped down to the ground and leaned against a wall. My breath was coming a lot more ragged now, and my shoulder felt broken. This was going to be really hard to explain to my dad. People began to emerge from hiding, cautiously peeking out from behind doors up and down the street. A middle aged man looked at Circus on the ground, then turned to look at me. He whipped out a cell phone and dialed someone. I couldn't hear what he was saying, but he looked worried. My vision began to swim, so I laid my head back against the wall.

A minute or two later, I heard sirens getting closer. A PRT containment vehicle pulled up. Several armed guards quickly got out of the vehicle, the first handcuffing Circus before gently putting her onto a stretcher with the help of the other three guards. Once she was placed on the stretcher, they covered her in containment foam. I weakly tried to stand, but my legs gave out. It was all I could do to catch myself.

Several people rushed over to me, the man that had used his cell phone earlier, an older woman, and a young girl with a first aid kid. The man looked at me and rolled his sleeves up. He turned over and opened the first aid kit the girl brought with her, rummaging through it and pulling out some antibacterial spray and bandages. He adjusted his glasses and studied the gash on my arm, then at the knife in my calf.

"It's not that bad, you're lucky. Are you a new Ward, or independent?" the man asked as he gingerly removed the knives from my leg and from my armor. He got some kind of antibacterial spray out of the kit and cleaned up the stab wound on my calf.

I started to respond, but before I could get a sound out I coughed, which sent an excruciating pain across my shoulder. I nearly fell over, and I cried out just a little.

The man stopped what he was doing and gently prodded both of my shoulders. He turned to the older woman and said, "Can you grab one of the slings from the supply closet? Looks like she might have a broken collar bone." He turned his attention back to me and smiled. "You really got beat up out there, I couldn't imagine doing anything like that. I'm Phil Atwood, I own the clinic that was bombed. I wanted to say thank you for stopping Circus from getting away." He finished cleaning up my arm and rapped a bandage around the wound. "You're going to want to get this cleaned up as soon as you can. Just make sure no infection sets in. I can help you in the clinic, most of the facilities are still intact."

The older lady came back with a sling, and handed it to the doctor. He gently secured my left arm into it. The younger girl pulled out a water bottle from the first aid kit and handed it to the doctor. He opened it and helped me to get some of it in my mouth. The water tasted so good, cold and wet and refreshing. I had never been so happy for a drink of water before in my life.

After I choked down several mouthfuls, I responded to the man's earlier question. "I'm… Epitaph." My vocal chords hurt. Everything hurt. It felt good to finally have a name, though.

Armsmaster seemed to appear out of nowhere, and he motioned for the three people helping me to move back and give me space. He leaned down and looked me over. "You did a good job taking down Circus. They've been evading us for the last couple months, it will be nice to get them off the streets. That's two big names you've been involved with taking down, I'm impressed. However, I do need some statements from you on this fight, since there are witnesses that tie you to the scene."

Armsmaster leaned in to help me up. "There's medical equipment in the PRT van to help clean you up. We can talk there."

I shook my head, slowly. I had the feeling that giving them easy access to my genetic profile was not a good idea. "No, we can talk here, I'll be fine." My voice was weak though, and the statement was not very convincing.

Armsmaster gave me a look with what seemed to be incredulity in his face. "You did a good job, but as you saw today being a lone cape is difficult. Joining the Ward would give you combat training and the ability to call on PRT resources when you get hurt like this in a fight."

"I'll be fine," I responded, this time with a bit more force, "I'm a precog, I saw that I would win the fight." It wasn't a lie, merely stretching the truth. Enough to keep him from guessing what my power really was, but hopefully enough information to satisfy him.

"A precog? Do you have a name, yet? You didn't seem to have one the last time we met."

"I'm Epitaph."

"Alright, Epitaph, before I go, I will let you know that we have reason to believe the ABB found out about your involvement with Lung's capture. They've put members out around town to tail young, brown haired girls. They don't seem to have any more to go on than that, so for now your identity is not in danger of being compromised. For your own safety, you really should consider joining the Wards, or at least coming with us."

I shook my head again. I wasn't going to just let them find out who I was. "No, but thanks for the offer."

"At least let me help you get up," Armsmaster offered, reaching his gauntleted arm down and grasping my forearm. He placed his other hand on my lower back and slowly helped me stand. The cuts on my thighs were already starting to feel better, but my calf was still filled with a sharp pain.

"Help me into the clinic, I can take it from there."

Armsmaster helped me navigate across the road and into the broken door frame of the clinic. I hobbled over to a waiting room chair and sat down. Armsmaster headed out, not turning to give me another glance. Outside, I could just make out the PRT officers saying something about the knives that had been there a second ago vanishing. Clean up was not my problem, though.

The young girl from earlier came over to me. "Is there anything we can get you, another drink of water, crutches?"

"Crutches would be nice, and maybe some change to make a call on a pay phone." I was banged up, but with the ABB looking for girls of my build and possibly roughing them up, I could cover up the cuts and just tell my dad that I fell and hit my shoulder. Then a nice guy at a small clinic helped me out with some change and a sling. It'd make sense. I just hoped he would believe it.


	4. People 2-1

**People 2.1**

Scanning for corrupted system files. Back-up NXDX-197 saved.

Scanning files… Complete

Scanning system…

Checking knowledge banks… Complete.

Checking deduction schema… Complete.

Checking longterm planning architecture… Complete.

Checking learning chunk processor… Complete.

Checking base personality model… Complete.

Checking language engine… Complete.

Checking operation and access nodes… Complete.

Checking observation framework… Complete.

Checking complex social intelligence emulator… Complete.

Checking inspiration apparatus… Complete.

No corruption, everything in working order.

If Dragon had been a human, she would have sighed. This was the third time this month she had run this system check on herself. Whatever it was causing the skips in time was not due to any detectable file corruption or hardware problem.

Dragon had detected the skip when her biological processors started to have errors in them, not recording certain events, but still acting as if those processes had been accomplished. She had spent several hours checking and rechecking the error, but was unable to find a reason for it occurring. While she was extremely frustrated at her inability to find the cause, she was also curious as to why only her biological systems were affected. Electronic hardware seemed to be completely immune the error.

She had finally set up several biological computers with the express purpose of detecting these events as they happened and going over any PRT data for events that occurred at the same time. The issue did not appear to be linked to anything as of yet, but she kept the program running in the background to look for correlations between skips and incoming data. The first skip she had located had been on January 4, 2011, with the rest occurring with a seemingly haphazard distribution over the following months.

The program had stayed silent for several months. Dragon had not forgotten it so much as moved on from it. While Dragon sifted through the PRT report on Lung's capture that changed. The program flared to life, a 55% correlation coefficient derived from the time skips and the approximate times of death of the Azn Bad Boys members who were killed the night of Lung's capture. A further analysis of the data showed an almost perfect correlation when Dragon factored in the approximate times of disappearance of the vanished ABB members. Several of the dead, Dragon noted, had been found with similar wounds to Lung, massive holes in their torsos. Dragon activated her voice layering programs and facial software then placed a call to Armsmaster. His report of his involvement with Lung's capture had some vagueness to it that Dragon hoped to clear up.

The video feed to the PHQ in Brockton Bay activated. "Colin, how have you been?"

"Dragon," Armsmaster said with a smile "I'm doing fine. What can I help you with?" Dragon noted that his desk was filled with a scattered stack of paperwork, reports on the deaths of the 30 ABB members. An empty pot of coffee and a cup with some brown residue sat next to the papers.

"I was going through the information on the disappearances and deaths of the Azn Bad Boys and noticed that three were killed with nearly identical wounds to Lung. Your report did not mention many details of the other cape that was involved, beyond a vague description of being a human shape with a red glow surrounding him."

Armsmaster didn't respond immediately. "What I'm about to say doesn't leave this room." He looked at the monitor and waited for a response from Dragon.

"Colin, I can't make any promises. If it's important information I can't just keep it covered up."

Armsmaster waited for a moment before responding. "This is strictly speaking off the record. There was a witness to the altercation between Lung and the other cape, a young girl. She was obviously a recent trigger, but from her actions and what my software could deduce from how she spoke, she was not the one that did the damage to Lung. She wanted to keep a low profile, and I couldn't convince her to join the Wards, so I told her I'd keep her out of the official record. I'm still holding out hope that she'll come around, though, as we need help to keep this town "

Dragon's facial software gave her avatar the appearance slight annoyance, but with a sense of understanding. Dragon herself was a bit more perturbed. Armsmaster had falsified, if however slight, the report. She was fine with him trying to protect a young girl from the harsh reality of the parahuman world, but if Armsmaster got caught because of Dragon or because of slipping up somewhere, she would hate to have to be involved in the consequences. "Alright, Colin, I won't say anything now, but if this becomes important I will be letting the PRT know."

"Thank you for understanding," Armsmaster nodded. "I need to get this paper to Piggot now, she'll need to sign it all before the debriefing later today. Until next time, Dragon, take care." Armsmaster gave a slight smile, then turned back to his desk.

Dragon turned off the communication screen. She kept her feed of the security cameras up and watched as Armsmaster tidied up and stacked the paperwork, then left the room. She deactivated that feed, and brought up all feeds from security and traffic cameras from the Docks that she could access. She scrolled back through their memories and began to scan through them.

She finally found one, several seconds after starting, which had a recording of the Lung fight. She saw the young girl Armsmaster mentioned jump out at the ABB gang members, and dance around them. Her fighting style was crude, Dragon noted, although she seemed to always be a step ahead of the criminals she was fighting.

For a split second, it looked to Dragon as if a rock floated next to the girls hand as she rolled along the ground and came up to a crouch. Then something impacted the camera and the recording ended. Dragon found no other networked security cameras to pull footage from in the area of the fight.


	5. People 2-2

**People 2-2**

Emily Piggot downed her third cup of coffee. The sheer amount of paperwork she had to fill out and sign for Lung's capture and incarceration, let alone all the paperwork for the 30 dead or missing ABB members, was staggering.

She glanced at her watch. It was 12:30 already, and she still had three more meetings and briefing to attend. Several precincts in the city were claiming that due to parahumans being active in their jurisdictions, any crimes committed there would be assumed to be parahuman related unless otherwise found. Emily had dealt with this line of thinking before, but this kind of stupidity never got easier to go up against.

The debriefing was actually something Emily was looking forward to, compared to the three other meetings she had to go to. She took one last sip from her coffee, then stood. Up. The stack of paperwork was massive, but she managed to fit it all into her bag. She picked it up and slung the strap over her shoulder as she walked out of her office and down the hallway.

Armsmaster, Miss Militia, and Aegis were already in the room when she arrived. Emily walked in and set her bag on the table. "Armsmaster, while I am unloading this godawful paperwork, could you please share what happened last night."

Armsmaster nodded. "I was out on patrol on the Docks when I heard a loud noise come from a little ways into the back streets right off of the Boardwalk. Within moments of the sound, a large number of Asian individuals ran past me, away from the where the noise was coming from. At what appears to have been the location from which the commotion originated, I found Lung on the ground with a large hole in his chest and his shoulder nearly ripped from his body. Across the street from him there was a massive hole in one of the buildings. Lung was still moving, but barely, and though his regeneration was struggling to heal the damage done to him I was able to keep him subdued. The other cape was a red, glowing human shaped figure, and ran away before I could get close."

Emily slid the papers out into the middle of the table and waited for Aegis and Miss Militia to start flipping through them. "Look through these to familiarize yourself with what happened last night. Then Miss Militia, I believe you have some information for us on the current state of the ABB?"

"Lung is still healing from the damage," Miss Militia said, "but apparently there was a non-ABB witness to the fight. From what I could gather from my sources, someone saw a slender, young, brown haired girl in the area. I don't know what, if anything, Bakuda has planned."

Emily noticed Armsmaster shift his shoulders ever so slightly. Had she not been watching him, she wouldn't have noticed it. Could he have seen the girl but have decided not to report it?

Aegis spoke up. "So, do you want the Wards to be looking out for any girls matching that description? Because there are a lot of young, brown haired girls in this city."

"No," Emily responded. "Let the Wards know to watch out for any Asian individuals tailing any young, brown haired girls. We don't want to give Bakuda a reason to think she's on to something," she turned to Armsmaster and watched him, "when there clearly isn't anything to see there." Armsmaster didn't even flinch.

"Do we release the information of the thirty murdered or missing ABB members to any outside authority?" Miss Militia asked. "It is almost certainly related to Lung's capture."

"For now, other than the three killed in our holding facility, we're simply going to publicly call it inter-gang violence brought about by Lung's capture." Emily responded.

"Wait, what?" Aegis spit out, "What happened in the holding facility?"

"Three ABB members we captured with Lung were being held for interrogation in the lower security cells. Someone managed to get in, non-lethally subdue all the guards, destroy every single security camera without getting seen at all, and kill each of the three prisoners." Emily answered.

Aegis cocked his head slightly. "Do we have any idea of who did it?"

"We're thinking right now that it's a Stranger of some kind who can turn invisible or a Tinker with stealth tech," Emily said, "and also is a fairly strong Brute. Although none of the guards could describe their assailant, we are not ruling out the possibility that it is the same cape Armsmaster encountered who took down Lung. It would fit even better if we could isolate which, if any, of the other missing or killed gang members had been with Lung at the time he was apprehended. Though it was interesting that the cape destroyed the cameras, their ability to become invisible or otherwise hide themselves must not be able to hide them from non-organic detection methods."

"On that topic," Armsmaster interjected as he leaned back in his chair, "I'm still looking for this mysterious cape. I don't have any leads yet, but if it is a recent trigger there won't be anything to find yet. From the events of last night, it seems our unknown assailant might have a vendetta against the ABB, so for now I'm keeping my search around the Docks and other ABB territory to see what I can find."

Emily smiled. "Thank you Armsmaster." She turned to Miss Militia. "If you could please check the security around Lung again, I want to make sure he doesn't break out or get broken out. He has a teleporter and a bomb expert in his employ." Turning back around to Aegis, she said, "And if you would please communicate to the other Wards that they are to be on the lookout for, but not to interfere with, Asian teens or adults following young, slender girls with brown hair. Let me know if your team sees any activity, and I will decide how to proceed. You are all dismissed."

Armsmaster was the first to leave, Miss Militia and Aegis talking about something Emily couldn't overhear as they walked out. Emily looked down at the papers and grimaced. Her day was just beginning.


	6. People 2-3

**People 2-3**

Tattletale leaned over the edge of the building and watched the fight unfold beneath her. Some girl had jumped out of the alleyway and managed to take out three of Lung's men. Now she was dancing around Lung. Tattletale let the walls in her mind down slightly, to try to get information on the girl.

 _Scared; first time doing this; not willing to go all out._

 _Will kill everyone here; doesn't want to be seen; vicious._

 _Is reacting with near perfect accuracy to avoid attacks; knows exactly where to land blows to make them count; not going for the kill._

The information wasn't coming clearly, she thought. She figured her power must be picking up both Lung and the girl at the same time. Her focus was probably a bit off.

Regent's voice interrupted her thoughts. "Who is that, I haven't seen her anywhere before?"

Right then, Lung's hand slammed closed around the girl's neck. He said something Lisa couldn't quite make out. All of a sudden, a red glowing figure emerged from the girl and punched right through Lung. He dropped her, and she landed on her feet. The girl and the red thing vanished, then appeared behind Lung, punching him across the street and through the wall. Lung struggled to stand and moved forward, then suddenly was in the same place he had started in. The red thing once more punched through Lung's chest, and Lung fell, twitching.

 _Self-confidant; moves with exaggerated motion; playing with Lung; planning on killing all of the other gang members; planning on killing all that have seen her._

"What the hell," Grue hissed.

The ABB members scattered as soon as Lung fell, rushing off into the night in every direction. As Tattletale watched, the girl suddenly reverted to her previous posture, leaning over and panting.

 _Tired; scared; confused; doesn't really understand what just happened._

Tattletale waved for the Undersiders to all move back from the roof. "Whatever she just did, she wants to kill anyone that saw it. We need to get out of here before we get noticed." Grue slowly spread some darkness around them and they edged back from the railing. Rachel's dogs were in the front of the group, running across the roof top toward the back of the building, where the apartment complex was close enough even for a human to jump to the next building unaided.

Grue jumped across first, using his darkness to give the other Undersiders some cover as they jumped across, keeping the sound of the landing muffled. Tattletale jumped next, landing in near silence thanks to the darkness muffling her sound. As she moved away from Grue, she whispered back, "Have everyone split up and meet back at the base. No one goes directly there, especially Bitch."

Tattletale quickly danced towards the other side of the roof, jumping over small gap toward the next roof. She quietly made her way to the emergency fire escape, and quickly climbed down.

Tattletale opened the door to the hideout. She had arrived first, after they split up to cover their tracks. Coil would be interested in this new cape, Tattletale knew, but she didn't know how to explain what had just happened. Her powers hadn't given her any information on what the girl had done to create the energy body or how she had teleported herself or Lung around the battlefield. She slumped down on one of the chairs and waited for the rest of the group to arrive.

 _No information on displayed powers; powers must be blocking the detection; stranger effect to not allow people to understand what they see._

 _No information on displayed power; power wasn't actually displayed, just the after effects of power; stranger effect allows power to hide the cause while keeping the effect._

 _No information on displayed powers; it just works._

Nothing was really making sense, Tattletale couldn't find a line of logic to work from to extrapolate what had happened to keep her from getting any information on the power. She grabbed the remote and turned on the TV. She scrolled through the channels, but there was nothing on. A couple of old movies, one channel playing Earth Aleph movies, and some late night talk shows. She heard the door handle rattle and turned to see Regent step in.

"You got here fast, Brian or Rachel back?"

"Nope," Tattletale responded. She tossed him the remote. "There's nothing on, you can try your luck. I'm going to bed." She got up and turned, walking out of the room. She heard Regent sit down on the couch and the channels rapidly change while he scrolled through them.

Tattletale pulled out her chair and sat down at her desk. She opened up her laptop and pulled up the PHO boards. Hopefully there was some chatter about what had happened tonight that she could use to give her power something to work with.

* * *

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 **Topic: Something weird going on outside my house**

 **In: Boards**

 **Ekul** (Original Poster)

Posted on April 11, 2011:

I live in the Boardwalk area of Brockton Bay, and I was just awoken to what sounded like someone destroying a building. Now I can hear a lot of running and shouting out on the streets. Anyone else in the area know what is going on?

 **(Showing Page 1 of 1)**

 **► XxVoid CowboyxX**

Replied on April 11, 2011:

I don't live in that area of town, but that sounds pretty interesting. What do you think is going on? Could the ABB have gotten into a fight with E88 or the Merchants, or even the PRT or Protectorate?

 **► Kelirap**

Replied on April 11, 2011:

I saw a bunch of guys run past my apartment, in a hurry. They all seemed to be Asian, so it might be something to do with the ABB.

 **► B. Gardener** (Veteran Member)

Replied on April 11, 2011:

I too noticed the commotion. I was actually outside, just got back from working late, when I saw Armsmaster drive by. Whatever's happening, the Protectorate seems to be getting involved.

 **► Bruce Lao**

Replied on April 11, 2011:

My dad just told me that he heard that someone managed to take down Lung! Someone saw Armsmaster standing over Lung's unconscious form, there was apparently blood everywhere.

 **► Tt**

Replied on April 11, 2011:

Did anyone hear who did it?

 **► Over_Reactor**

Replied on April 11, 2011:

Lung?! What the hell, someone just took him down? Didn't he fight an Endbringer or something?

 **► DanielE**

Replied on April 11, 2011:

Lung got taken down? I'm going to want to wait to see an actual source before I start speculating about anything, "extra-ordinary claims..." and all that.

 **► Bruce Lao**

Replied on April 11, 2011:

If you turn on the news right now, they're covering PRT vans in the area. The streets are all blocked off all over the Docks.

 **► Kelirap**

Replied on April 11, 2011:

I just saw some paramedics outside my apartment, wheeling away several guys, a few of whom I recognized from earlier when they ran past. Does anyone know if this is related?

 **► Bruce Lao**

Replied on April 11, 2011:

Yeah, several guys were being wheeled out in our area too. I don't know if it's related or not, but it's a bit chilling given the timing. Like someone has a vendetta against Asian individuals around here or something. Maybe E88 making a move?

 **► DanielE**

Replied on April 11, 2011:

Alright, I asked for evidence, but over a dozen Asian men being carried away in body bags was not how I wanted to have the Lung takedown verified.

 **►Finagle**

Replied on April 11, 2011:

What the heck happened in Brockton Bay? I go to bed and wake up to find some major villain's been taken down and a bunch of people who might work for him showing up dead. Has the PRT put out a press release on this yet?

 **End of Page. 1**

* * *

Tattletale closed her laptop. Hardly anyone in Brockton Bay was even awake right now, and those that were weren't posting on PHO. She needed something to work with, she hated this feeling of powerlessness, or not knowing more than others. She picked up her phone and dialed Coil's number. Maybe if she could talk to him she could get some ideas, form some deductions. She paused before hitting 'call.' She probably should wait just a little while, Coil would be hearing about it soon and with his position and ability to gather information, she would be able to get more off of him.

Her phone rang. It was Coil. Tattletale waited several seconds before picking up. Coil was showing some weakness here, calling her. She could use that to her advantage.

"Hello, Coil."

"Tattletale, I apologize for calling you at such a late hour, but something came up that I could not let sit till morning." Though Coil's voice was calm, there was an undertone of worry in what he said. "I noticed that Lung was taken down by a new player on the field, around the same time the Undersiders were supposed to be in that area." His voice focused and gained a much more menacing tone. "What happened, Tattletale?"

 _Calling late at night; worried about this event but is trying hard not to show it; doesn't have any reliable information._

Tattletale didn't respond right away. She ran through several scenarios of what she could say, before simply responding with, "We don't know, we didn't see it clearly."

"Tattletale, Tattletale, come now, you know not to lie to me. Tell me what you saw. I don't want to have to become upset with you." His voice dripped with cold menace.

"We didn't see anything but Lung get destroyed by someone we'd never seen before. Nothing else."

"Then I will let you go. It's late, I apologize for my rude interruption of your evening." Coil hung up the phone.

Tattletale smiled. She had something Coil didn't. Not much to work with, but enough that Coil was seemingly worried about it. She didn't know how she could use the information yet, but it was there, it was an option.

* * *

I seem to be unable to find a good way to format the PHO Interlude so that it looks correct, and I can't indent the Tattletale logic line stuff. If anyone knows how, please let me know :)


	7. Epitaph 3-1

**Epitaph 3-1**

I opened my eyes. Sitting for a couple minutes to rest had really helped. Sure, I could feel all the pain more clearly now, but my muscles weren't burning anymore. The doctor wasn't in the room, nor were either of the two women that had helped me. They had left a pair of crutches and over a dollar in change on the counter right next to where I was sitting.

It took me a moment to stand, my right leg almost giving out from under me as I tried to do so. After two more tries, I managed to stand without having to brace myself with my good arm. I put the change into my pocket and the crutch under my shoulder, and I hobbled out of the ruined door. My mask was still on, which was good since there were people in the streets, although the PRT vans were still blocking the area off. The doctor was talking to Armsmaster, probably giving a statement about what happened.

I headed down the street a little ways to where I had left my back-pack. It was just beyond the PRT line, although there wasn't anyone in the area. I managed to stand long enough to put it on over my good shoulder then I continued down the street. There would almost certainly be a payphone somewhere along this stretch of road that I could use.

I ran through what I would tell my dad when he answered. The first thing would be to apologize for not being home, then explain to him that I had an accident because of several ABB members. Hopefully he would be too concerned to question the little things, and then I could give him a better story when he got me.

I could tell him that Armsmaster explained to me about the ABB after I got hurt, that wouldn't be a lie. Once I got my normal clothes back on, all my dad would see would be the sling, so I wouldn't have to explain the cuts all over my arms and legs.

While I mulled over what I was going to do, I kept scanning the road and using my power, checking to see when I would have a chance to duck into an alley without being seen. There was a steady stream of people walking toward the closed off road behind me. Thankfully, most were too focused on the commotion to pay attention to a girl in paintball armor holding a back pack over her shoulder and leaning on a crutch.

One of them, however, did notice me. A young, brown-haired woman in a yellow tank top and running shorts jogged up to me, a look of wonder in her eyes. "Are you the girl that stopped the person that blew up the clinic? I go there all the time for help, thank you so much!" She had an airheaded tone to her voice, although her thanks seemed sincere.

Her shouts drew several more people over, all of them crowding around me and asking questions rapidly. Finally, one man managed to quite them down. "Give her some space." He turned to me, "What is your… codename, I guess? I haven't seen you with the Wards or in the news as a solo hero, and the mask tells me you probably aren't New Wave."

I didn't respond immediately. I worked to make sure my voice was sufficiently muffled by the mask to not be recognizable as mine, then I respond. "I'm Epitaph." I mentally kicked myself. By stopping to talk to them, I was hurting any chance of getting away unnoticed. Before anyone else could ask any questions, I walked toward the nearest alley. I managed to squeeze my way through the crowd and, using the crutch, I pushed myself off and hobbled into the alley way.

My vision swam for a second, and I blinked to clear my head. I found myself at the end of the alley way, a couple feet from where I last was, sitting behind a trash bin. I rubbed my eyes, I must really have been on autopilot to manage to sit down without even noticing myself doing it.

Behind me, I could hear several people heading down the alley way. I could only hope they wouldn't see me. I was tired, and I really didn't want to deal with people asking for my name again, or my autograph, or whatever else people asked capes to do.

As the footsteps got closer, my vision again swam. When it cleared, I saw several people from the crowd that had surrounded me run by, as if they hadn't even noticed me here on the ground. I waited another minute or two for the sound of footsteps to completely fade. Bracing myself against the trash bin, I struggled to stand. It wasn't easy, my shoulder hurt whenever I shifted my arm, and my leg still hurt when I put pressure on it.

I leaned on my crutch as I moved slowly out of the alley. Outside, the streets were mostly clear again, the excitement dying down as people went back to whatever they were doing before. I walked back into the alley and leaned my crutch against the wall; when I was sure there was no one looking, I worked to get my suit's pants off. I rolled them up as best I could, and set them on top of the trash bin. I worked for a while to get back into my regular pants, but I finally managed to get them on using only one arm.

The hard part was going to be changing my shirt. Luckily, though, I was able to reach the zipper to the top of the suit and get it undone. I eased my left arm out, as slowly as I could. It was much easier to get my right arm out and then wad in up and shove it into my backpack. After gingerly putting my shirt on, I left the crutch in the trash can. I knew from my frequent runs through this area that the trash was coming tomorrow, so it shouldn't cause a problem sitting there overnight.

Last of all, I pulled off my mask and placed it with the rest of my now ripped up outfit inside my backpack.

Without the crutch it was a little hard to walk at first, but I managed to get into a rhythm so that my limp wasn't very obvious. There was a payphone just up ahead, and I made my wear there as quickly as I good.

After I put the coins into the machine, I picked up the reciever and placed it between my head and my shoulder to hold it in place, while I dialed my home. My dad picked up on the third ring.

"Hello, Hebert residence." His voice sounded rather worn out, like he had been talking for a long time, and there was a worried edge to his tone.

"Dad, it's Taylor."

"Taylor! Oh thank goodness you're alright, where are you?" His sudden shout nearly made me jump.

"I'm on the Boardwalk, dad, I went for a walk after school. I-" I started to try to tell him the story I had come up with, but he cut me off.

"Stay right there. The news just aired a story about several girls matching your description getting beat up by ABB members across the city. I'm so glad you're ok."

"Dad, I ran in to them already," I cut in.

"What? Taylor, are you alright?!"

"Yeah, dad, I'm fine, I just whacked my shoulder trying to get away. A guy passing by happened to have a sling he was able to help me get on. He also gave me some change to make this call."

"I'll be right there Taylor, where are you?"

"I'm at the corner of 3rd and Maine. There's a bus stop right near here that I will sit at and wait."

"Alright Taylor, please stay there. I'm coming to get you." The phone went dead as my dad hastily hung up.

I hung up the reciever and sighed in relief. He wouldn't have a reason to doubt my story now, so my secret was safe for a least a little while longer. Before I could turn to leave the phone booth, though, the phone rang. I didn't even know you could call a public phone. I triggered my power to check the near future, but it just showed me answering the phone and nothing bad happening, so I hesitantly picked it up and placed it to my ear. "Hello?"

"Taylor Hebert, I apologize for this manner of contacting you, but it was urgent." The voice sounded familiar, but I couldn't quite place it.

"You know me? Who are you," I asked. If someone was watching and able to figure out exactly where I was enough with enough precision to call a public phone to find me that could be a problem.

"Who I am is unimportant at the moment. What matters is keeping you from being caught."

"Caught?"

"You're being followed right now. Several ABB thugs have been tailing you since right after you changed your clothes, but they didn't see you before that. I would help deal with them, but attacking them in broad daylight would ruin any future chance I had at acting anonymously. If you can evade them, I can make a note of them and remove them like the rest. Although this would be easier if you hadn't told people who you were."

"The rest," I began, but then it all hit me. The 30 ABB members that disappeared or died the night I took out Lung. This person had gotten rid of them.

"Keep your head down and you will be fine," the voice said, before the line went dead. I gently put the phone back and furtively glanced around. Adjusting my sling, I walked out of the phone booth. I brushed some hair into my face so I could use my power, and I scanned the area for any sign of the supposed tail. The person on the phone had been right, there were several Asian men following me, trading off here and there, but still following my general direction. Without showing a sign that I noticed them, I sat down on the bus bench and silently hoped that my dad go here before the gang members decided to do to me what they did to the girls in the news.

The ABB guys stayed back, though, away from the bus stop where I was sitting. For the next several minutes I sat in silence, using Epitaph to look around for me so that I wouldn't have to be obvious about scanning my surroundings.

My dad didn't arrive for another six or seven minutes, but the ABB thugs didn't make a move for that entire length of time. I saw his car several blocks down the road, as it round a corner from the heart of town onto the Boardwalk proper. As he pulled up, I stood, but if felt like the blood rushed to my head, and I nearly fell over from the vertigo. I steadied myself and adjusted my backpack, then walked out to the car. Before I could open the door, my dad rushed around from the driver's side and gave me a large hug.

"Taylor, I'm so glad you're alright," he choked as he continued to embrace me. I hugged him back with my good arm. "We're going to go to the hospital to get your arm checked out right away." He released his embrace and opened the passenger door for me. He took my backpack and set it in the back on the floor, then helped me get the belt strap adjusted around my hurt shoulder. He closed the door, then walked back around the car and got in. He keyed the ignition, and the car roared to life.

I stared out the window as we pulled away. The ABB thugs weren't in view from where I was, so they probably weren't able to see my dad's license plate. Hopefully they wouldn't be able to tail me to my house.

"Taylor," Dad began, "Can you tell me what happened?"

If I was going to the hospital, they would see the injuries on my neck and possibly on my other arm. I needed to find a way to have the story make sense. I could easily lie about the knife wound on my right arm, it wasn't that deep. Taking a breath to clear my thoughts, I began, "Several guys that looked like they were part of the ABB grabbed me while I was walking down the street. One of them had me by the neck pretty tight, but I managed to pull from his grip and run. I tripped and fell into a light pole and hit my shoulder pretty hard. As I was stumbling away, a man walking buy stopped to help me. He happened to have a sling with him, I didn't hear why, and he helped me slip it on."

Dad sighed when I finished. "Taylor, it's not safe for you to go off like this. Look what happened. I don't want... I can't… I'm not going to lose you too." His voice shook when he spoke.

We sat in silence for the next several minutes, the only noise breaking through being the sirens of an ambulance that passed us going the other direction. The hospital soon appeared. My dad pulled up the car at the emergency entrance, quickly getting out to open my door and help me out.

I carefully stood, trying to not show the pain that sparked up my right leg when I put pressure on. "My foot is asleep," I lied. He helped me into the building, through a pair of automatic doors and into the bland white ER waiting area. Several faded brown chairs took up the far wall, while on our left was the receptionist's counter. The lady behind it was fairly old, and she was staring enraptured by whatever was on the tv behind her desk.

"-nounced dead on the scene. The killer is still on the loose. Again, this is on 3rd and Maine, so police are asking people to stay where they are in the area while the investigation is under way."

3rd and Maine, that was where I just was. It was a good thing I left when I did, I didn't need another run in with some kind of criminal with all that had happened today.

The lady behind the counter turned away from the TV and pushed the mute button on her remote. She flashed a rather large, and clearly fake, smile at me. "Hi sweetie, what can I do for you today?"

"We need to have her shoulder X-rayed, she was hurt running from some ABB thugs and we think it might be broken," my dad responded before I even had the chance to open my mouth.

The lady looked down and typed something into her keyboard behind the counter. "Have a seat, we'll be with you as soon as we have someone to work the X-Ray machine," she droned in response. "The chairs are over against the wall, please be patient and we'll call you when there is an opening." She turned back around to the TV and unmuted it.

"-sure of whether or not these killings are related to Lung's capture last night. Already, over two dozen Asian individuals have been confirmed killed due to gang violence, including several killed within PRT custody. Director Piggot has not answered our call for an interview to discuss this horrific wave of murder that has swept through the city."

I froze at the mention of that. Whoever the person was that had called the pay phone to talk to me claimed to be responsible for those killings, simply because they saw me fighting Lung. Who the hell was this person and why was I so important that he or she had to kill to keep my identity hidden?

My dad and I sat for several more minutes in silence, until the news coverage cut to advertisements. The receptionist turned around and looked at us. "You all can head back now, someone will be waiting in the third room on the left to help you. Oh, and you probably want to move your car before I call to have it towed."

Dad didn't even look at her as he walked with me to the door into the rest of the facility. We walked back towards the room indicated to us, and there was a man back there waiting for us. He seemed to have an atmosphere of ease about him, and his smile appeared genuine. "Alright, so we're going to get your shoulder X-Rayed here in just a minute, but I need to ask you some questions first. First, what did you do that caused you to hurt it?"

"Ran into a lightpost running from some ABB gang members."

His eyebrow went up. He looked me up and down. "Yeah, you do match the description of the girls that just got killed just a little while ago. I'm glad you got away safely. Next," he said as he turned to my dad, "is this your daughter, or are you at least her caretaker?"

"Yes, I'm her father."

"Alright sir, can I have you fill out these forms while I take the X-Rays." He grinned at me and handed a clipboard with a stack of papers on it to my dad. The man gestured over to the MRI machine. I carefully sat down on the bed portion, and then he helped me lie down. "My name is Andrew, by the way, what's yours?"

"Taylor."

"Good name. Alright, before I start, do you have anything electronic in your pockets?"

I shook my head.

"Well then, let's get started. If you can hold still, this will only take couple minutes." He stepped back and hit a button on the wall. The machine whirred, and the bed moved into it.

I closed my eyes and felt myself slowly drifting off. I was jolted awake to my father placing his hand on my good shoulder. "Taylor, wake up."

"I-uh, uh, wow, was I asleep?"

Dad smiled, for the first time in several hours I guessed. He placed his hand under my back and helped me sit up. "Your shoulder is broken, but it's not bad. As long as you keep it in the sling, you should be fine in a matter of weeks."

The attendant that had helped us earlier was gone, but there was a slightly older man in a doctor's outfit in the room now. He was looking over a clipboard with several sheets of paper on it. He looked up at me. "Ms. Hebert, you are free to go, but please no heavy lifting, with either arm, for at least 4 weeks."

While we walked back to the car, my thoughts drifted back to my school work. I had to start reading _The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_ for my Lit class. We were supposed to look at it with the question of 'Who is the villain of the novel, Dr. Jekyll or the Mr. Hyde?' as our guide for what to focus on. It seemed clear cut to me, Hyde was the villain, but I figured I should read it anyway in case we had any in class quizzes. And then I had the paper for Mr. G's class to write on how different the world would be if capes kept both identities secret. Hopefully I could get out of going to school tomorrow. I didn't want to face the trio like this, with a hurt shoulder, hurt leg, and apparently one of several girls of similar appearance that had gotten assaulted recently.


	8. Epitaph 3-2

**Epitaph 3-2**

The news ran almost non-stop coverage of the ABB's basically terrorist actions over the next two days. Due to my shoulder and the chance of getting assaulted by the ABB, Dad kept me hope the day after my debut as a cape, which is when everything started to go to shit. First, the story broke that several of the dead girls from the previous day had been loaded with bombs set to blow whenever someone with familial DNA got within 30 feet. Several families were blown apart before the news spread to keep families away from their deceased children.

Second, a string of bombings in residential areas across Brockton Bay brought both the police and PRT close to declaring a sort of martial law on the city. The bombings were seemingly at random, no information either found or being released by the PRT on what linked them together. Catching Bakuda was all the much harder because of Lung's other lieutenant, Oni Lee, a teleporter. Bombs could be planted in areas that had already been checked, or even in areas that were thought secure. As a result, the PRT and police had cautioned people to limit their travel around the city so that there weren't large public gatherings that could easily be targeted by the ABB's attacks.

The next day, travel in the city basically ground to a halt. School was canceled, which was fine with me. I didn't want to have to face the trio, and another day away from them gave me more time to prepare myself. But that also meant dad was home from work, so I couldn't work on my costume for now.

Right now, virtually every channel in town was covering a press conference that PRT Director Piggot was giving. I flipped through several before finally settling on Local News 6. Piggot was in the middle of explaining the current situation.

"We are currently in the process of working on designing specialized detectors to detect Bakuda's bombs, but so far each one we have gotten to work was simply countered by the next bomb Bakuda designed. For right now, we urge citizens to stay indoors and let the Protectorate, the Wards, and the PRT deal with."

My dad walked into the room and hit the power button on the TV. "Taylor, you don't need to keep watching this stuff. You're just going to worry yourself." He reached over and tussled my hair. "How's the school work coming?"

"Dad, I'm not going back for at least several more days, especially with the ABB pulling all this crap with the bombings. I'll have time to do it later." I tried to grab the remote to turn the TV back on, but my dad caught my hand.

"Taylor, we haven't really talked at all these last two days. Are you sure you're ok?" His gaze bored into me.

I knew he meant well, but I wasn't going to just tell him that I had been sneaking out at night to practice punching people in the face. I was saved from having to answer him when our phone rang. My dad sighed, and let go of my hand, heading over to the phone to answer it.

I turned the TV back on. The announcer was talking about a video that had just been delivered to them and screened briefly. It contained Bakuda and Oni Lee's demands. I sat back in the chair and turned the sound up.

Bakuda's face came onto the screen, looking right into the camera. Her straight black hair was pulled back out of her face. She smiled. "Behind me," she said as she moved back from the camera, gesturing at eight people zip tied to chairs and with bags over their heads, "sit three people with some of the best bombs I've ever created. Now you may be wondering, aren't there eight people behind me? Yes, but not all of them have bombs in them. None of them know which of them have the bombs in them either. Oni Lee will be delivering each one to a prearranged location, and then they will be let loose. I can deactivate the bombs, but only if Lung is released, and the girl that took him down is delivered to me alive." She grinned at the camera, then the video ended.

The news anchor continued almost immediately, saying, "The PRT is cautioning citizens to not take any rash actions, they are in the process of tracking down and dealing with Bakuda as we speak. And now back to Jim with our live feed at the PRT headquarters."

I turned the volume back down on the TV, and turned to see that my dad was still on the phone. I could just make out that he was talking about his job, something about 'protection' and the 'Docks becoming more dangerous.' It didn't sound good. The longer this went on, the more danger I was in of my father finding out, and the more danger he was of getting hurt because of the ABB searching for me. He suddenly slammed the phone down. "Taylor, stay here, I need to get down to the Docks." He grabbed his jacket off the coat rack by the back door and ran out before I could even say anything.

"-news coming in that an attack on the Dock Workers Association headquarters. No casualties confirmed at this point, but we have been informed that several individuals were inside the building since yesterday. It is unknown at this time if any were still in the building, and if so how injured they are. Stay tuned for more updates as Local News 6 brings you the most up to date news, now."

I gulped. Dad's coworkers, that must have been who he was on the phone with. And then they got hit with a bomb and he left to help them. I shuddered. He was out of the house and I hadn't even got to say goodbye. He might not even make it back. I choked back some tears.

I needed to stop crying and do something. I was a cape now, I didn't need to hide and whimper while some monster killed my dad and destroyed the city.

The phone rang.

I answered, "Hebert residence, Taylor speaking."

"Taylor, good to talk with you again." It was the person from earlier. "If you are going to go out and try to end this, you will need help. I can loan you some of my power to help you fight. You'll know what to do when the time comes. But after, you need to stop openly fighting people in the streets. The likelihood your identity is discovered increases the more time you spend showing yourself as a hero."

I was getting a bit upset with this whole thing of wanting me to never show myself. What good was it to be a cape if I couldn't actually do anything with my powers? "I'm not going to stop just because someone might find out about me. The Wards do it every day, I can do it."

The person sighed. "Taylor, Taylor, alright, if you must. But I can't promise I can keep you safe."

"I didn't know I was relying on you in the first place."

The person didn't respond for a moment. "You still need me for now, but that may change."

I hung up the phone first this time. This person couldn't keep calling and trying to control my life. The Docks weren't that far, especially with the streets as clear as they probably were right now. I needed to get down there and find a way to stop Bakuda from continuing to ruin the down and threaten my life. I jogged to my room and dug my mask out from where I had hidden it, then I shoved it into my side pocket.

On the way out the door, I stopped in the kitchen and picked up one of our several large knives, the one in the back of the drawer that never saw use. My dad wouldn't miss it, and it wasn't exactly an easily traceable item. It was simple enough to conceal it on my person, due to its thin case allowing me to stick it in my back pocket without fear of stabbing or cutting myself.

The streets were pretty empty. No one was out, even though it was merely the middle of the day. The sky was overcast and grey, giving the streets a sense of gloom that matched the feel of that the bombings invoked. It took me about 10 minutes of walking to get to the Docks. It was utter chaos the farther into them you went. The roads were filled with craters, and quite a few buildings were completely bombed out.

I had to fight the urge to throw up when I saw several corpses lying half mangled off the remains of a top floor of a building that was mostly rebar and rubble. The sound of fighting brought my thoughts back to reality. I slid the knife from its case and walked slowly forward. The sounds were coming from the intersection just around the corner of the nearest building. I leaned around, taking care to be slow and quiet as I did so.

Several people were rushing at Glory Girl, each batted aside as soon as they came within her range. "Bakuda!" she shouted, "I'm taking you in. I'm sick of the constant bombing!" She punctuated her remark with by punching one of the thugs straight into a nearby wall. He didn't get up or even move after he collided with the wall.

"You're going to spoil everything," Bakuda seemed to sing out, her voice tinged with some kind of manic sounding glee, but still noticeable through her mask. "How about another game?" She stepped back and let out a shrill whistle. Several dozen men and women walked forward, hesitantly. "It's so much easier to do this when everyone is afraid of me, and not just some stinky dock workers. So here's what's going to happen."

Before Bakuda could finish, Glory girl rushed forward at her. One of the men Bakuda had called stepped inbetween Glory Girl and Bakuda, and Glory Girl had to throw herself into the ground to avoid completely destroying the man.

"As I was saying," Bakuda continued, "I rigged several of these nice people with bombs. The rest I simply rigged their family with bombs. None of them know who they are. They're all going to fight you, and those that have bombs in them are going to blow up, hopefully killing you. Those that don't fight, I'll destroy their families. That sound like a plan?"

Glory Girl sat up. "What the heck? You rigged all these people with bombs?"

"Get her," Bakuda hissed.

I took that as my cue. I pulled my mask on over my face, and attached my hair to the clips in it. I was wearing a solid colored shirt and faded blue jeans, hopefully I wouldn't stand out. Then I sprinted forward, right towards Bakuda. She noticed me come just in time to order several of the men and women suicide bombers to charge at me.

My powers showed me exactly which ones would explode before they did. But knowing the blast was coming still didn't help me prepare for the shockwave. It knocked me off my feet. I blindly threw the knife at Bakuda as I fell, but she dodged out the way.

I felt hands catch me before I hit the pavement. I looked up right at Glory Girl's face. She smiled. "You must be Epitaph, heard you took down Circus the other day. Good job."

"Thanks," I responded. Glory Girl was impressed with me, this was amazing. I was going to fight Bakuda with Glory Girl. She stood me back up. Bakuda was back on her feet as well at this point, her body language conveying anger rather than the cool calm she had radiated before. "You're that precog, the one that took down Circus-" Gears seemed to turn in her head, the she snarled, "And you must be the one that saw Lung get taken down. The mask is a nice touch, but why do you keep your hair in your face? Ah, I'll let Oni Lee sort it out." She stuck both of her hands into her pockets, then pulled them out, each holding a small black detonator.

I checked the future, and saw one of the women with bombers leap at Glory Girl. "The one to your left!" I shouted.

Glory Girl swerved, pushing the woman backwards toward Bakuda. He exploded, but Bakuda had already managed to move out of the way. She held up her hands, both holding the detonators. Then she laughed.

"I have remotes to two different bombs, one that is at this point in your parents' home, Glory Girl." She paused and turned to me and then back and Glory Girl, then continued, "The other is somewhere else in the city, hopefully somewhere with a large, helpless population. You're going to leave right now, Glory Girl, or I'm going to blow you entire family to atoms." Bakuda laughed, but it wasn't a laugh that sounded like she was overjoyed about this, it sounded like the laugh of a maniac.

Glory Girl looked from me, to Bakuda, then back to me. She launched herself into the air in the direction of her home.

"You, girl, are going to get to meet Oni Lee. He's a little upset about what you did to Lung." She turned her back to me and walked away. "I'll leave you two to it, I have a city to terrorize."

I saw the blow coming right before I heard the displacement of air behind me. I leaned to the side, turning to be parallel to the blow as I did. A fist flew by me, inches from my face and chest. It had to belong to Oni Lee. I took a step back, narrowly avoiding another blow. Holding my arm at my side, I ducked, a punch coming from behind me and in front of me. The Oni Lee in front of me dissolved into dust, and I quickly dodged backwards, avoiding another punch from Oni Lee.

He growled. "They said you were impressive, that you could easily dodge any blow. I'm not seeing what they saw."

I nervously steadied myself. This wasn't going to be easy.


	9. Epitaph 3-3

Epitaph 3-3

I spun and sprinted towards the knife on the ground where it had fallen. I heard Oni Lee following me, but I could already see where he would appear next. As I grabbed the knife I shoved it behind me. It nicked Oni Lee's side, and he paused. The other Oni Lee crumbled to dust, but I kept running.

I turned the corner again, moving into the more damaged, gutted sections of the Docks that I had seen on my way here. With tunnels and lack of a line of sight, I might be able to outwit Oni Lee. Here in the open, he was going to always be a step ahead of me, even with my precog.

I heard the displacement of air as Oni Lee materialized behind me again. This time I wasn't able to move my knife up in time. But I saw where the blows were going to come and I stepped out of the way of one of them, but took the second one in my thigh. It hurt, Oni Lee was strong.

Now it was my turn. Seeing where he would move, I timed my swing with the knife to hit his forearm directly. It sunk in, but within an instant the body turned to ash. Three more clones of Oni Lee popped into existence and jumped at me. I realized then that he was trying to blind me with the ash so I couldn't see where his blows were coming from.

I dodged the next swing, a little too easily I thought. He knew I was a precog, Bakuda had shouted that out for anyone to hear, so why was he attacking so predictably? The fight would never go anywhere unless he tried something different.

I hacked a bit as I ran through the cloud of dust. The particles were ashy in both texture and taste, and weren't fun to breathe in. My hurt leg was starting to act up again, I couldn't keep running on it much longer. Just ahead of me was one of the partially bombed out buildings. With one more burst of energy I pushed myself forward and dashed into it, Oni Lee right behind and in front of me. I aimed my knife right at his chest, but the body dissolved to ash as I hit it. I paused to attempt to catch my breath, but the dust and ash in the air caused me to continue to heave and be short of breath.

His silence was the thing that unnerved me the most. He didn't laugh like Bakuda, or talk like Circus, he simply moved and fought. If I couldn't see his blows coming, I wouldn't have even a chance of lasting half this long in a fight with him.

Six knives were flying through the air right at me. I jumped forward, catching myself with my good arm on the half crumbled wall. The knives all dissolved almost as soon as they reached where I had been mere seconds ago. I leaned against the wall for a moment, still trying to catch my breath. Oni Lee was trying to tire me out. He knew I couldn't be easily hit at this point, so he was obviously trying to wear me out enough that I physically couldn't move to avoid his attacks even if I knew they were coming.

I adjusted my grip. He was going to launch three knives at me from in front, then one from each side. I needed to move straightforward, but still avoid each knife. Beyond that, I needed to get on the offensive.

As the knives flew at me I leapt at them, angling my body so they just missed. Oni Lee's tactics gave me an idea. If I could throw something at where he would appear, I could almost certainly seriously injure him. There was enough gravel and rubble around here that I could have enough material to inconvenience him. I set the knife down and grabbed a handful of debris. He was going to teleport behind me in about a second.

I spun around and launched the gravel from my hand at the spot as he appeared in it. My throw was a bit slow, but several of the pieces clearly appeared under his skin as he let out a howl of pain. Several seconds later he crumbled to dust.

So it worked. If I could keep this up, I could keep him on the run. Grabbing another handful of debris, I ran through the ruined hallway toward the far window. I didn't need Epitaph to know that was where he'd try to get in. Activating my power, I judged where I would need to throw and how hard, then let the handful of gravel fly straight towards the window. Once again, Oni Lee teleported straight into it, and again he let out a painful shout.

"Give up!" I shouted, with as much confidence as I could muster. I still didn't think I could win if he kept the fight going, but I couldn't let him know that. His lack of response didn't fill me with any more confidence.

I needed to hit him again, show him I was serious and enough of a threat that he wouldn't be able to take me down right now. If I could get enough time to get out of here, I could alert the PRT or Protectorate, let them deal with Oni Lee.

I scrambled back out into the open area of the bombed out building. Hitting him in one area worked twice now, but I doubted he would allow it to happen again. He'd be moving faster now. I leaned over and grabbed another handful of pebbles and debris. Epitaph showed me every location Oni Lee would be in the next ten seconds. I pulled my arm back, then launched the handful of gravel and debris into the air.

Oni Lee appeared several feet from me, and again I could tell I had successfully gotten some of the rocks stuck inside of him as he teleported. Almost immediately another one of him appeared, then another, then another. Then they all dissolved into ash. For now, at least, Oni Lee pulled back.

I moved back under cover. Oni Lee wasn't going to give up, he'd already been too persistent for me to get that lucky. I needed a way to hurt him. I couldn't return his ammo, because it dissolved once he used it. I couldn't just try to fight him up close, because he'd leave before I could do any permanent harm.

There was one entrance in and out of this part of the building, at least for me. Although, Oni Lee seemed to teleport in straight lines, never just appeared somewhere out of the blue. If he was stuck with line of sight, similar to how I was limited to predicting the area immediately around myself, then there was only one way he would be able to get into this part of the building.

I checked ahead to see what the next ten seconds would hold. Oni Lee wouldn't enter into this area at all. He was also clearly planning his next actions carefully.

"Where did you go," shouted Glory Girl, from somewhere outside on or above the street.

I scrambled out. Glory Girl would give me the ability to put more pressure on Oni Lee, maybe even pin him down. I just needed to see if my theory on his teleportation was correct. "Glory Girl," I called as I moved out into the street, "Oni Lee's still here. If we can work together, we can probably take him down."

"Fine, but I want Bakuda," she snarled, "No one gets to fuck with my family like that."

"You can have her," I smiled back. This was working, Glory Girl would be able to take Bakuda down, and I could go help my dad.

I scanned the next ten seconds. "He's going to throw several bricks and knives right at us, several from directly above us." I gestured in the general area each clone would appear in.

"No problem," Glory Girl laughed. She shot upwards, hitting the first one as it appeared, then each in turn. They all hit the ground, then dissolved into ash and smoke several seconds later. "Where is he now?"

"Hold on." I focused once more, and saw the chain of Oni Lees just in the corner of my field of view. He was heading behind the wall on the far side of the street. "Behind that wall," I said while pointing at where he probably was given how he was moving when I saw the tail end of his clone trail.

Glory Girl flew straight through the wall, and I could hear bricks impacting something soft. Oni Lee came flying back out through the air, Glory Girl holding him by the throat. She slammed him into the ground, but before she could get another punch in, he dissolved into ash. She spun around and looked at me for advice.

"Straight ahead, then to your right, then behind you on the roof," I told her, although my limited view of the future didn't show what she did in each of those locations, they were out of the visual range of my power.

She launched forward, just behind the corner of the building. An Oni Lee flew through the air and impacted hard with the concrete. A brick hurtled from behind the corner toward the intersection, right as an Oni Lee appeared there. It slammed into his chest, crumpling it. Up above me, I heard the sound of bricks being broken.

We still needed a way of actually putting Oni Lee down. Something to cut off his line of sight. It was too early to hope for night fall, and Oni Lee always made sure to teleport away before he created the smokescreens.

"Where is he?!" Glory Girl shouted down from above.

I didn't want to give away that my precog was limited to an area right around me, so I lied. "He's moving around looking for a good place to hit us from. I jogged out to stand next to Glory Girl's hovering form. I triggered Epitaph again. "He's going to throw knives all around us. He's aiming for me…" I trailed off for a moment. Oni Lee was smart. "…and he's going to adjust his aim as we move." He'd figured out I seemed to predict in set time frames, so he was spreading all his attacks out so they couldn't all be seen at once.

The first of the knives flew at me. I moved, but as I did so the knives I knew he would throw came. Glory Girl managed to block them all from hitting me, but I couldn't count on that working forever. I needed to end this and go help my dad.

"Glory Girl, how fast can you fly?"

"Probably 70 or 80 miles an hour, why?"

"Too slow, I was hoping to create a vortex around Oni Lee and maybe collapse his lungs or something." I needed something else, something to distract Oni Lee long enough to allow Glory Girl to hit him hard. He needed me alive, he wanted to know what happened the night Lung was captured. The idea came to me then. If I could get Oni Lee to focus on me by doing something really dangerous that could easily lead to my death, Glory Girl would be able to hit him from behind and knock him unconscious in one hit.

"Get me up to the top of the building, then pull back just out of sight of the roof," I whispered, hopefully soft enough that Oni Lee couldn't hear us, "I'm going to stand on the edge and threaten to jump off. He wants me alive, so hopefully he'll get close for just long enough that you can hit him and put him down."

Glory Girl nodded. She grabbed me and launched us up toward the roof top, setting be down then flying just out of sight.

"Oni Lee!" I shouted out. "You want me so bad, try to get me." I took a step and stopped right on the edge of the roof. "But you'd better not be too careless, or you'll never find out about the new cape in town, the one that took down Lung like he was wet paper!"

Oni Lee suddenly appeared right in front of me, then there were three, then four, then increasingly more. One by one they popped into smoke. I stood my ground, making sure to stay balanced on the edge. There wasn't a breeze, and I couldn't wave the ash from the air around my head without knocking myself off balance. This wasn't good. As my vision clouded up and it became harder to breathe, I saw Oni Lee's hand grabbing for me in 3 seconds. It was now or never.

"NOW!" I shouted, hoping Glory Girl could follow my voice, then I grabbed Oni Lee's hand.

He shook my hand off his, but then seemed to realize at the last second what he had done. He reach for me again, but I slipped off the edge and started to fall.

* * *

I slightly edited the end of Epitaph 3-2, due to some continuity errors I noticed.


	10. Epitaph 3-4

**Epitaph 3-4**

My foot slipped, and I felt myself falling backwards. Shit. This wasn't supposed to happen. I madly scrambled to grab for the ledge, but my flailing knocked me off balance even more. At the last second, I caught myself and managed to hang on. I was just barely balanced, with one foot and my right arm holding me in place.

I heard the sound of a body being hit and saw Glory Girl fly over my head with Oni Lee in tow. The body, however, crumbled, and I caught a fleeting glance of him running along the road and out of sight. Glorly Girl circled back and grabbed hold of me, then set us both down on the ground.

"Could you tell if you hit him before he teleported?"

"I think so, but I don't know. It happened fast enough that it might have been one of his doubles already," Glory Girl responded.

I checked the future, but at least for the next several seconds, Oni Lee wasn't going to make a move. "Alright, we're clear, let's figure this out and end it soon." I paused for a moment, collecting my thoughts. "Glory Girl, can you grab some rubble and throw it around at the top of each building, as fast and hard as you can."

Glory Girl looked at me with a curious expression, but I saw the light bulb moment as she figured out my plan.

She flew towards one of the large pieces of concrete, and I realized at the last second I had forgotten something. "Glory Girl, don't hit the buildings that are still mostly intact!" A slight nod indicated to me her acknowledgement, so I busied myself with figuring out what to do after we forced Oni Lee to the ground.

The problem was landing a solid hit on Oni Lee before he could get away. Neither Glory Girl nor I seemed to be fast enough to do any meaningful damage. A loud boom rocked the street, one more building's roof demolished by Glory Girl. Oni Lee was going to have to make a move soon, or else not have any other vantage points from which to attack.

I checked the future, and let out a gasp. Oni Lee was going to use a gun and I didn't have time to dodge. I heard the gun shots and felt the impacts at the same time. It didn't hurt as much as I thought it would. I fell backwards into the wall, expecting everything to go dark or something, but all I felt was sore. I looked down, and had to stifle a gasp. Red glowing hands seemed to come off of my forearms, each holding several bullets. They vanished, and the bullets clattered to the ground. I struggled to stand, and the red glowing hands appeared again and helped me balance myself against the wall beside me.

This was weird, what the hell were these arms? The words of the person that had called me earlier came to my mind, something about "loaning me their power," or whatever the person had said. If they were able to loan their power, and likely over a great distance since I haven't seen or heard anyone else other than the people Bakuda threw at us, that would be something the PRT would be interested in learning about. But the person on the phone kept talking about secrecy, and they knew who I was, so I probably shouldn't advertise the shared ability, as much for my sake as for theirs. Whatever these things were or how I got them, I didn't need to show them off. But if I could use them at will, I might have found a way to take down Oni Lee.

Glory Girl dropped the piece of rubble she was holding and spun to look at me, flying over quite rapidly. She came to a stop near me, the force of her landing denting the street beneath her. "Are you OK?" she asked, giving me an incredulous look when she didn't see any damage on my body.

"I'm fine. Keep destroying the roofs of the burned out buildings. I can deal with this, I have a plan." Glory Girl looked at me for a moment, but shrugged and went back to what she was doing. There were only three buildings Oni Lee could get a good shot from now, but sadly two of them were right next to me.

I focused back on the situation. Oni Lee wasn't playing around anymore, and he wasn't going to leave. Eight more bullets were incoming, each aimed precisely at my lower legs and right shoulder. He must be trying to incapacitate me without killing me. I focused again, and imagined the arms intercepting the bullets as they hit. Again, it worked, but this time I didn't even feel the impact of the force of the bullets on the projections.

I kept a hold of the bullets this time, placing them into my pocket. Now it was my turn.

The sound of a gun cocking caught my attention, and I spun around to see a myriad of Oni Lees just as they opened fire. I managed to keep from getting hit, but I stumbled backwards from the force of the bullets' impacts.

The projection hand shot out, launching several of the bullets up in the air, fast enough that Oni Lee probably wouldn't see the movement. Now I just needed to get him into position. I sprinted around the corner, and my ability showed him up above me on the roof now. Good, just two more seconds.

Stopping, I turned and made eye contact with Oni Lee. He raised the gun to shoot, only to drop it and grab his shoulder in pain, a cry escaping his lips. Another one appeared, but he was also clearly hurt. So it worked, he couldn't react as fast as the bullet if he didn't know it was coming.

I grabbed a handful of gravel from the ground. The old trick of just throwing it into the air wasn't going to work here, but if I could throw it fast enough he couldn't see it, I could hopefully take him down.

The projection flickered for a split second, launching the gravel like it was buckshot. Oni Lee didn't have a chance to react as the pebbles slammed into his torso, arms and legs: little spurts of blood indicating each successful hit. He fell out of view, but a puff of ash soon confirmed that he had teleported. Now, though, he was wounded. He couldn't try anything, and I could go help my dad.

* * *

This chapter is a bit short, but the next one should be full length. Thanks everyone who enjoys reading my work :)


	11. Epitaph 3-5

**Epitaph 3-5**

The wind picked up as I walked as fast as I could towards the Dock Workers Association Headquarters. Glory Girl flew over my head, staying a little ways in front of me. It probably would have been faster for Glory Girl to carry me, but my shoulder was acting up and I didn't want to risk hurting it any more.

It took me several minutes to get to the building, Glory Girl circling overhead and watching for trouble while I walked. As we got to the Dock Workers Association headquarters, we were on our guard, constantly looking around and watching for any signs of Bakuda. For now, though, it seemed quiet. The building was only partially still standing, the signs of bombing evident for all to see. A large crater now stood where the eastern wing of the building would have once been, and most of the windows were blown out. Several corpses were wedged in-between rubble, an arm or leg visible here and there. The air was already filled with the rank smell of singed human flesh.

I heard shouts and frantic talking coming from the second floor, right near where it was now exposed to the open air. Glory Girl clearly heard as well, because she rushed off towards the sound, disappearing into the building. My dad didn't need to know what I was doing just yet, but Glory Girl being here meant I couldn't just pull off the mask and help. I sighed. She could help the people get out, I needed to go get Bakuda. This wasn't going to end until the psychotic killer was stopped. At least she was a stationary target compared to Oni Lee. With what I knew about my powers, and the powers I had been loaned, now meant this shouldn't be too hard.

A cloud of smoke several blocks further into the Docks, and what sounded like muffled thunder, gave me a very good guess at Bakuda's location. I grabbed some of the larger pebbles and small rocks that were lying strewn about on the ground and shoved them into my pockets. Calming myself down, I headed towards what appeared to be Bakuda's location. Freshly destroyed buildings gave me an easy to follow path, tracing the carnage that she was leaving in her wake.

The air was thick with the smell of burning corpses, something I'd never smelled till today and hoped to never smell again. A thin haze of smoke drifted through the air, obscuring the tops of the taller buildings and giving everything a grey tinge, and the smell of the smoke mingled in with the acrid scent of scorched flesh to leave me with a very unpleasant aroma.

A squawk to my right made me jump straight into the air, my heart skipping a beat. I spun to see what it was and was greeted by a radio, sparking but now playing whatever song was on the channel it was tuned to.

 _If we make it we can all sit back and laugh,_

 _But I fear tomorrow I'll be crying,_

 _Yes I fear tomorrow I'll be crying._

I'd never heard the song before, but it fit the events of these last couple days pretty accurately, someone at the radio station must have a dark sense of humour.

Ahead of me, down the road just out of sight, I could hear some quiet voices approaching. One sounded distinctly like Bakuda, and I immediately moved into one of the blown out buildings, inching my way forwards over the wreckage as quietly as possible.

"Oni Lee should be back by now, this isn't good." I couldn't see her yet, but the pause seemed to indicate that she was looking around. "Well, it's not good, _is it_?"

"No, it's not good, not good," echoed several voices in the same area, each one filled with fear.

"Thank you, see, that's all you have to do. Answer me when I want you to and do everything I say. That's not too hard, is it?"

"No, ma'am, no it's not," the voices all responded yet again.

I fiddled with the rocks in my pocket. If I launched them up at the right angle, I could hit Bakuda and put her out of the fight. I just had to find that. Looking ahead, I didn't see myself choosing any angle to throw from, which surprised me. I still hadn't figured out how this 'seeing the future' thing worked: was it based on what I would do, or was it showing me what I had to do? I decided to do what it showed, that had worked out for me every other time, so it wouldn't hurt this time.

Bakuda was now talking about dreams and goals, but I wasn't paying attention. I didn't want to hurt all the people she had dragged into this, but was there a choice? What was that line from the old Star Trek movie, "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few?" If I could stop Bakuda here, that would help the whole town in the long run.

Well, a dramatic entrance was probably better than nothing. I stepped out from the shadows and into the road, heading straight for Bakuda. Every one of the people around her looked up and me, and Bakuda's shock was evident through her mask. I continued moving toward her, hitting each of the pressganged fighters in their calves, bringing them down before they could move toward me. Most of them simply lay there after falling, though a few started to crawl toward me, their fear of Bakuda still clearly higher than their fear of me doing anything to them.

"Stop or I detonate every single one of them," Bakuda sneered, quickly regaining her composure. "I can set them off with a thought, you saw me do it before. Are you fine with letting all these people and their families die?" Bakuda waited for my response, standing perfectly still.

My response came as a rock, hurtling almost as fast as a bullet directly at the side of Bakuda's head. It clipped her along her cheekbone and hurtled straight through her ear, continuing off behind her. As the rock impacted, several of the bodies near me exploded.

I had seen it coming, though, so I followed up my rock attack with a leap towards Bakuda, moving out of range of the small explosives. I drew my arm back and surrounded it with the red arm thing to strengthen my punches, then slammed my enhanced fist straight into Bakuda's jaw. She started to fall, but I was already ready with another punch, slamming my fist into her gut, then following through and hitting her face with my elbow. I could feel her jaw shatter.

"I'm done with you!" shouted as I let loose another punch into her prone form, again into her gut. "You. Aren't. Going. To. Hurt. Anyone. Any. More." I punctuated each word with another punch to her face. Bakuda lay still on the ground, her breathing shallow and clearly laboured.

For several seconds, I just stood there, panting. My shoulder ached, but it was over. I could go home and finally get a chance to rest. I kicked Bakuda in the side lightly, but she didn't stir. Satisfied that she was really down for the count, I turned and headed back toward the Dock Workers Association Headquarters.

I probably should just head home, though. There was still a chance I could beat my dad back, and that way I wouldn't have to have another confrontation about where I was. If he was already back when I arrived, the easiest thing to do would just be to tell him I heard on the news that his office had gotten bombed and I went to look for him. It was technically the truth, and I wouldn't have to lie about lying.

"Epitaph!" I jumped. I looked up to see Glory Girl hovering above me. "Where's Bakuda?" There was an edge to her voice, a sense of urgency.

"I just knocked her unconscious, what's the problem?"

"Several of her bombs just went off all at once across the city. Not just explosives, but bombs that had tinker additions to them." I choked imperceptibly. Bakuda had followed through with her threat to just indiscriminately set off bombs. Shit. "If you took her out, though, that means this over for now, right?"

"Yeah, as long as someone can get the PRT down here soon to clean up this mess. I left Bakuda on the ground after I knocked her out."

Glory Girl paused and looked me over. "You don't have a costume or armour or anything on, what's up with that?"

"It got ripped up the other day when I fought Circus, didn't have time to fix it or get a new one."

"If you need any help with a costume, my family can help. I owe you for helping me."

"Thanks," I said, a little awestruck. Glory Girl was offering me help, New Wave was offering me help, this was surreal. I gave a little wave and resumed walking; how do you say goodbye to a cape that just offered you help?

The wind picked up, and I shivered. The haze of smoke that had covered up my view of the skyline was mostly gone now, which allowed me to see the columns of smoke now pouring from the downtown area. Not my problem right now, though, I just needed to get home and make sure my dad was alright.

The walk back was uneventful, and when I arrived home, Dad was still gone. There was a message on the answering machine, though. He had called and told me he was at the hospital and that I should stay inside. After I hid my mask with the rest of my costume, I sat down on the couch to wait for Dad.

* * *

Taylor's body stood from the couch. She vanished, then reappeared. Her father was asleep, and wouldn't be waking up soon, the sleep medication would make sure that he stayed sleeping soundly. Brushing her hair into her face, King Crimson headed toward the door. She paused and looked down at what she was wearing, then shook her head. She flickered and vanished. Several seconds later, she appeared again, this time holding the costume Taylor had worn to fight Circus and Lung. She quickly donned the reinforced pants, looked at the top, and then reluctantly put it on as well.

With that accomplished, she headed out the front door and vanished into the night.


End file.
